The celebrated silk factories are not, of course, so picturesque; and the depressing mixture of steam heat, and smell is certainly calculated to make one long for the very latest kind of progressive machinery to replace such unhealthy “human” labour. Here, again, we find Jews and the so-called “Catholics,” have replaced the Greeks; and the proprietors (who are so often Jews) only complain that there are not more hands available.
This means, of course, not enough competition; and wages have risen from thirty to sixty piastres a day. For this reason they miss the Greeks and Armenians, although the new men are equally good workers.
“We have also to employ Turkish women,” they say.
“Are they good?”
“No, very bad. They can work, but have never done so, and have no experience. Yet we must pay sixty piastres for their unskilled labour.”
“Then you are running the factories at a loss, with these high wages?” I asked.
“Oh, no! We ‘make up’ for that by paying the peasants half their old price for the raw silk.”
“Do they complain?”
“No. We tell them that times are bad; which they understand, and accept.”